Curved high-back bench - SUNDAY, Jun. 14 2009— One-named Brazilian soccer star / Suspected spy celebrated 1949 trial / Sexual Honesty compiler

Constructor: Brendan Emmett Quigley

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "D-Plus" — "D" sound is added to familiar two-word phrases, resulting in wacky new phrases (all of which require significant respelling, in addition to the added "D"). New phrases are clued "?"-style.


Word of the Day: MAOTAI (11D: Strong Chinese liquor) —n.

A clear, very strong Chinese liquor distilled from sorghum.

[After Mao-Tai, a town of Guizhou province, China.] (answers.com)

A fairly straightforward add-a-letter (or in this case, add-a-sound) puzzle from BEQ, though with some nice added features — every answer is a two-word phrase, every answer requires more spelling reconfiguration than the simple addition of a "D," and (with the exception of HOUSE-ADDRESSED, which I didn't care for) every answer is clever-to-funny. I misunderstood the theme at first, after I got DO PENDANTS. I thought the phrase was a play on the word DEPENDANTS ... so DEE goes to DUE ... or DE goes to DO ... I picked up the real theme shortly thereafter, at PASSED MUSTARD. I had one Natickesque moment at the crossing of NARA (21A: Japan's first capital) and MAOTAI, neither of which I knew. Transliterations of Asian-language words crossing at a vowel, yikes. I reasoned that only an "A" or "O" would make any kind of sense there, and that it was highly unlikely that NORA would receive a bygone Japanese capital clue (what with at least a handful of available NORAs out there), so I went with "A" (wisely). Two other answers were utterly new to me: KAKA (41D: One-named Brazilian soccer star in the 2008 Time 100) — not the greatest name for becoming famous in America — and NARTHEX (83A: Way to the nave), which sounds like a creature from the "Star Wars" universe, not a church part. Oh, there was also CANTED, which I guessed, but don't think I've ever seen in print or heard before (87D: Aslope). I inferred the answer from CANTILEVERED (?), though that word has nothing to do with being slanted. Weird. All in all, very doable and enjoyable puzzle, pitched to just the right level of difficulty (lots of stuff to slow you, nothing much to stop you).



Theme answers:

• 23A: Make necklace baubles? (DO PENDANTS) - from "do penance"
• 25A: Hip lineages? (COOL BREEDS) - from "cool breeze"
• 39A: Tonto's pep? (SIDEKICK ENERGY) - from "psychic energy"
• 50A: Gave Grey Poupon to the head of the table? (PASSED MUSTARD) - from "passed muster"
• 66A: Greediest person on Long Island? (AMITYVILLE HOARDER) - from "Amityville Horror" (great marquee answer)
• 85A: Spotted feline's home? (LEOPARD COLONY) - from "leper colony" (don't see leprosy in the puzzle much ...)
• 94A: Like residential mail? (HOUSE-ADDRESSED) - from "house arrest"
• 114A: Certain Colorado headgear? (BOULDER HAT) - from "bowler hat"
• 116A: Bamboozle Eisenhower? (SNOW DWIGHT) - from "Snow White"

My favorite non-theme answers of the day were (in no particular order):

• ALGER HISS (79D: Suspected spy in a celebrated 1949 trial)
• PAPER LOSS (3D: Unrealized hit taken on an investment)
• TOO FAR (60D: How cringe-making humor might go)

Aside from the NARA / MAOTAI crossing, only two other places in the grid offered a threat of breakdown. I had to surround the DOTH/OTTO crossing completely before I got it. I live just an hour from Syracuse and somehow still didn't know that damned orange was named OTTO (64A: _____ the Orange (Syracuse University mascot)), and the clue on DOTH fooled me completely, as I had no idea what was meant by "auxiliary" (53D: Obsolete auxiliary). I was thinking of "Ladies Auxiliary," whatever that is, and considered the possibility that DOTH was an acronym. You know ... D.O.T.H. = Daughters of the Huns? They're "obsolete," right? Turns out DOTH is a simple, obsolete auxiliary verb. Bah! NARTHEX! Speaking of nutty "X"-containing words, EXEDRA (96D: Curved high-back bench)!? Wow. That "X" was the last letter I entered into the grid. Don't know how often an "X" is the last letter entered, but I doubt very often. Thank god the crossing EXP made some kind of sense to me (101A: Food pkg. abbr.).

Bullets:

• 1A: 1982 best seller subtitled "And Other Discoveries About Human Sexuality," with "The" (G-Spot) — Very Quigley. Goes nicely with HITE (111A: "Sexual Honesty" compiler).
• 20A: Repetitive cry while waving a hand ("Me, me!") — I wonder if this originally had a different clue. MEME is a pretty common internet-related term now.
• 22A: Japanese import since 1986 (Acura) — had HONDA at first and thought "... that can't be right."
• 79A: Three-time A.L. M.V.P., informally (A-Rod) — He has helped the Yankees to compile an 0-8 record against the Red Sox so far this year.
• 103A: Atlantic Division cagers (Raptors) — ah, "cagers." Where have you been? I feel like I haven't seen you since 1992. Good times.
• 9D: 1987 Costner role (Ness) — played Elliot NESS in "The Untouchables"
• 17D: One of the Planeten (Erde) — this made no sense to me at first. Then I remembered that ERDE is one of six or so German words I know. Means "Earth."
• 34D: Infomercial cutter (Ginsu) — ads for these were a staple of my childhood.
• 63D: Hangar 18 contents, supposedly (ETs) — a hangar at Wright-Patterson AFB that allegedly holds evidence from the Roswell UFO incident.
• 70D: Dad's rival (A and W) — ampersandwich. Last time the NYT used this clue, I think the answer was BARQ'S.
• 86D: O. Henry-winning author Tillie (Olsen) — one of many authors on my mother's bookshelves whose names I know but whom I never read.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

[Muffins, coffee, and (wife's) Saturday puzzle ... in which wife invents the term "MULTI-facial"]